Letters to my Children

Dear Michael, I hope you had a fantastic week. Did you check the mailroom? There should be a Halloween treat waiting for you. I hope you have something fun planned today. Glad to hear Eric made it to church! And I’m so glad to hear Tony Wang is back. Good luck with all of your teaching this week. Sorry to hear so many appointments fell through last week. I listened to an interesting program recently and one of the things they talked about was the Chinese government. The government expects Chinese nationals living throughout the world to be answerable to Chinese law at all times. If people do things like criticize the Chinese government they can be reported to authorities who may threaten their families back home. This is especially concerning for students studying abroad. How awful it must feel to have to worry about being spied and reported on. And how frustrating it must be for people wanting to be baptized, but are worried about the repercussions. We are having a lovely fall--- 1. T...

Hi Michael! I hope you had a great week. I’m so glad you got to go the the temple this week.  It sounds like it was a really great day. Wish you could have seen Elder Mordue! I have to say that your shaved ice dessert has me intrigued. I would probably even try it with the red beans! I’m sorry to hear that some of your friends are struggling. Keep working hard to teach and serve them. You are making a positive impact in each of their lives, and we are very proud of the work you’re doing. We’ve had another busy week--- 1. Baseball, basketball, soccer, karate, and football. So many sports! Ethan’s baseball season is coming to a close, and basketball is ramping up—though Ethan has injured his knee, so he may need to take it a bit more slowly than he would like. The swelling has come down a lot and it’s looking much better. Hopefully we don’t repeat this cycle all winter long. Jett had his last outdoor game and will be transitioning to indoor soccer soon. This week at karate there were...

Hey Michael! I'm sorry I didn’t get this letter out sooner in the week. Life is always a bit crazy around here. It sounds like you are just busy, busy, busy with all of your different friends. I’m glad you have so many teaching opportunities.  Glad to see Julia be baptized, and sorry to hear the Lui family is struggling. Hopefully they get the test results they are looking for.  I can hardly even think of anything very exciting that happened around here las week. 1. Jett has been asking to take karate for a long time. So I finally took him to a class at the rec center on Thursday. He was definitely the tallest kid, and some of the others were quite young. He was very disappointed with the class and I found out that he thought he was actually gong to be able to fight someone in karate! Haha. He’s going to have to practice awhile before that happens! The class was held over spring break, so I hope when I take him tomorrow that there will be some older kids who come. 2. Jett had ...

Hey Kiddo! I hope you had a great week. Looks like it’s getting a little chilly in Boston already. Is it just beautiful with the leaves changing? We are having the most glorious weather here. The leaves are just starting to turn, but the mountains are turning red. It’s warm and sunny, and I’m trying to soak it up while it lasts. Usually it seems that by Halloween the weather has turned colder, so we probably don’t have much time left to enjoy the warmth. It sounds like you are having a great time with your two new companions. I’m guessing they really like working with you. How was your first week on the bikes? I’m glad to hear you have some good teaching opportunities right now, and so glad everything went well with Jenny. Let me know if there is anything you need or that I can do for you. We didn’t have a super-exciting week around here.  1. The biggest bummer is that Ethan had basketball tryouts and did not make the 7th grade team. I think all of the kids from his “A” teams, and ...

Hello My Dear, Happy October! I’m absolutely loving the weather right now. It’s glorious. Bright blue skies and sunshine plus the occasional heavy rainfall.  I wish it could be like this all year round. I bet this is a really fantastic time to be in Boston as well—although it looks like it’s a good 10-20 degrees cooler there. How are your shoes holding up? Seems like you said they were starting to fall apart? Were you able to get them repaired, or do you need replacements? Did you end up mailing your watches to us? I haven’t seen them arrive. Or did you mail them to the company to have the batteries replaced? I’m very excited to hear you have approval to ride bikes now. I know you will enjoy that, and it will probably improve your efficiency. Also, I’m excited that your area has expanded and you will have some new teaching opportunities. It’s exciting to have another missionary to train. You must feel busy! Make sure your companions know that you have the nicest apartment ever, and...